Movie Review - The Skeleton Twins

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader
are "The Skeleton Twins"

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader co-star as brother and sister who reunite after being apart for ten years and have to deal with the issues that separated them as well as the issues that have brought them together again. Those issues are all dark and depressing, but thanks to the good chemistry between Wiig and Hader, the comedy of all that darkness and depression is somehow able to poke through.

Kristen Wiig plays Maggie, a dental hygienist who's married to Lance, a sweet and handsome environmentalist, played by Luke Wilson (Legally Blonde and The Royal Tenenbaums). Bill Hader plays Milo, an aspiring yet failed actor who has recently broken up with his boyfriend. Both begin the movie wanting to commit suicide. With Milo, you understand why almost immediately. With Maggie, her reasons are unsure.

After dual suicide attempts, it can be next to impossible to start there and then pull the film back up so that the audience can laugh. The heavy-lifting on that front ironically lies with Hader. His scene opposite Wilson when all three are having dinner really helps to break the ice. The "in the flesh" gay joke releases a lot of the tension, but it's that initial dinner scene that really re-establishes things well.

Hader in a lot of ways steals the show and gets a majority of the laughs, but this overall might be Wiig's best performance on the silver screen. While, as I said, her reasons for suicide are not immediately obvious, by the end her arc is so clear and rather heartbreaking that you get her reasons completely.

Yet, she gets some good laughs too. Despite the mostly highbrow stuff, she is able to go low-brow and make something like fart jokes funny. Wiig though does most of the dramatic acrobatics and she's great at it. She's probably her most sexual here too, but the movie tries to go against the usual slut-shaming.

Ty Burrell, even though I liked him as the voice of Mr. Peabody in Mr. Peabody & Sherman, he also gives probably the best performance of his career as a former love interest of Milo. Luke Wilson is great as he usually is. Even short or brief performances from Joanna Gleason who plays Judy, the mom of Maggie and Milo, as well as Boyd Holbrook who plays a sexy, scuba instructor, are all really solid.

Five Stars out of Five.
Rated R for language, some sexuality and drug use.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 33 mins.